Feminist Dystopia: A Study of the 2019 Ballet Adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Abstract

Dystopian narrative has come to be the focus of academic studies in the 20th century mirroring hunger, terror, violence, and repression. It gradually eliminated the fictive utopian imagination by showing the long-neglected side of the coin. People’s constant need to live in a perfect utopian world is best manifested in Thomas More’s description of this world in his masterpiece Utopia. Since More’s Utopia, fictitious countries- mostly islands- have been dreamt of and created in literature. The construction of a utopian world is thoroughly affected by the current events in societies, aiming at changing the circumstances for the better by pinpointing them.

In fact, this study attempts to examine the ballet adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The ballet was performed in 2019 and presented by Ecole De Dance Anick Macconnel at Fever International Dance Championships The paper adopts a feminist dystopia perspective and attempts to highlight the significant inevitable changes that occur when adapting a novel to a ballet performance – a six-minute-performance in this case. Furthermore, the study capitalizes on the amount of dehumanization female figures had to undergo with much attention given to Offred who is the main protagonist of the novel as well as in the adaptation. The adaptation is going to be tackled in the study through pointing out the significance of the medium specific features of the selected ballet performance such as the significance of ballet movements, the choice of music, and lights displaying the ramification of brutal authoritative governments and attempts of resistance. This is going to be analysed in light of feminist dystopian fiction.